Should we change rox to other more beautiful ones... ?SOLVED

[ttuuxxx]

actually i am curious as to why the full rox desktop environment has never been tried in puppy [as far as i know]

a lot of the plugins/addons use python, thats probably the reason .
ttuuxxx

[37fleetwood]

I will stick with boxpup which last time I checked was about 20MB smaller than the main puppy and included Rox + PCman.

I think we agree on most points, as it stands, there is a line beyond which computers of a certain age just will not run Puppy, at least not any of the newer Puppies.
perhaps our best solution would be to petition Grey to put PcMan into .pet form as he seems to have been able to get it working well in Boxpup which is running Open Box/Rox.
I still think much work needs to be done on getting .pups updated and .pets uploaded onto the Ibiblio servers etc.
really I use Ubuntu as my main OS and play with Puppy when I get the chance. Puppy has some great advantages but those advantages come with a few limitations.

[Max Uglee]

Yea, I use Mint for my main OS and play with various puppies here and there. I think that talking to grey about some .pets is a good idea. Then getting those up on Ibiblio would be great also.

[bugman]

so, a couple of people who mostly use mint and ubuntu are whining about how puppy works

i use puppy exclusively, every day, all the time

leave rox alone, real puppy users love it

[ttuuxxx]

I have to agree with bugman, I'm a loyal dedicated puppy user, I even went as far as to compile pcmanfm and well, it took a few new librabries, icons, naming of icons and then it wasn't all that stable. took me about 1hr to get it up and running, I was just wondering if it was any better, other than having the directory structure on the left hand side, I couldn't say it was better, or warranted a change in puppy. I always like the way Xp handled files, That's about the only good thing Microsoft ever did, well that and Office2003. Rox is really to date the only File manager that really fits it to a "T", Puppies main goal and is Size and functionality and Rox fits both.
ttuuxxx

[disciple]

Rox is awesome. Yes, a tree view and a better history feature would be nice, but the only filer I'd consider using instead is Konqueror, which I obviously don't, because it is KDE
On older computers I do recommend using the old gtk1.2 rox though, because it is waaaay faster (except it doesn't read exif thumbnails).

BTW
Office 2003?
97 all the way! Do you realise how fast it runs and how little ram it uses? Hardly anyone uses the newer features (except the new view that was added in powerpoint). What's killed it is incompatibility with the new 2007 formats.

[ttuuxxx]

Rox is awesome. Yes, a tree view and a better history feature would be nice, but the only filer I'd consider using instead is Konqueror, which I obviously don't, because it is KDE
On older computers I do recommend using the old gtk1.2 rox though, because it is waaaay faster (except it doesn't read exif thumbnails).

BTW
Office 2003?
97 all the way! Do you realise how fast it runs and how little ram it uses? Hardly anyone uses the newer features (except the new view that was added in powerpoint). What's killed it is incompatibility with the new 2007 formats.

Ya I had 2007 on my wife's pc for a couple of days she hated it with a passion, I don't know how MS could think that a total revamp of GUI for something as complex as a Wordprocessor would be a good idea, people learn how to use MS Word in schools because it has so many functions and abilities. I think it should of been a gradual overhaul. Oh well its done and over with now and my wife is stuck on 2003. I personally like abiword but its not not perfect with .doc files, not the best thing to edit a resume with then send it off.

ttuuxxx

[37fleetwood]

so, a couple of people who mostly use mint and ubuntu are whining about how puppy works

i use puppy exclusively, every day, all the time

leave rox alone, real puppy users love it

some people just never seem to get anything!
when I tried out distributions in my search for the one that would replace XP a couple years ago, it was a very close run between Ubuntu and Puppy. I joined this forum almost two years ago to the day, so I'm not just some twit who has just shown up and now wants to change everything. haven't you been reading the thread? I proposed leaving Rox alone, as you whined, and simply asking for a .pet of PcMan for those who want it. man you just never get it. real Puppy users indeed! the use of Rox doesn't make you some sort of Puppy "Purist" it just makes you a Puppy user same as me. maybe, if a few concessions were made once in a while, Puppy would attract more people (that and if certain people didn't just go around trying to cause trouble).

[James C]

@ 37fleetwood :

I don't believe anyone has a problem about pets for different file managers. I think that point kinda got lost in the"Puppy is an OS for geeks" and not suitable for an everyday OS stuff started by you know who a while back and brought back again in this thread.

Right now Puppy is #8 on Distrowatch's list and a lot of major changes are unnecessary.Pets aren't major changes, someone will probably be working on one soon.

[bugman]

some people just never seem to get anything!

I use Ubuntu as my main OS and play with Puppy when I get the chance

oh no, i get it . . .

excuse me while i nip over to the ubuntu forums and start pestering for a roxbuntu spin-off [so i can play with it when i get the chance]

[ttuuxxx]

some people just never seem to get anything!

I use Ubuntu as my main OS and play with Puppy when I get the chance

oh no, i get it . . .

excuse me while i nip over to the ubuntu forums and start pestering for a roxbuntu spin-off [so i can play with it when i get the chance]

Hey when You do give me a invite, Its always fun getting the boot from the chat site
ttuuxxx

[37fleetwood]

excuse me while i nip over to the ubuntu forums and start pestering for a roxbuntu spin-off [so i can play with it when i get the chance]

I recently posted these caps over there, will either of these suit you? both using Ubuntu.
Windowmaker/Rox:

or if that's too fancy maybe this
Jwm/Rox:

[alejol]

Hello. Has a new Puppy user, I agree with others in this thread about ROX problems.
Two pane file manager, in Windows Explorer fashion, is a great thing.

One can easily find a directory and make things with the directory content in the other pane.
With a one pane file manager, the chances of dragging for error are more great.
Another thing bad implemented in ROX is the "Copy" feature. The Copy dialog box needs a file browser (wirting the final directory is a real pain).
In Explorer, you can right-click over a file, then choose Copy, then point
in another directory, right-click and Paste. You do not need to see the two windows at the same time.

Other question: internationalization of ROX. ROX complaints about "non-UTF characters " in filenames. Why?????? The world is more wide than ASCII table.

[ttuuxxx]

Hello. Has a new Puppy user, I agree with others in this thread about ROX problems.
Two pane file manager, in Windows Explorer fashion, is a great thing.

One can easily find a directory and make things with the directory content in the other pane.
With a one pane file manager, the chances of dragging for error are more great.
Another thing bad implemented in ROX is the "Copy" feature. The Copy dialog box needs a file browser (wirting the final directory is a real pain).
In Explorer, you can right-click over a file, then choose Copy, then point
in another directory, right-click and Paste. You do not need to see the two windows at the same time.

Other question: internationalization of ROX. ROX complaints about "non-UTF characters " in filenames. Why?????? The world is more wide than ASCII table.

If you want to copy in rox, don't use the menu
open a folder to where the item you want copied is, then open another folder to where you want it to go or be copied to.
now drag it from the original location and drop it into the new location, rox will ask you then "copy,move,link' select which ever you want it to do.
ttuuxxx

[disciple]

Rox is modelled on RISC OS, so is very much drag-and-drop focused. They'd even prefer dragging from an application to a filer to save a document

[bugman]

I recently posted these caps over there, will either of these suit you? both using Ubuntu.

well, apart from the fact that it's ubuntu . . .

funny though, i was tweaking a windows xp box for my landlady today,
and i had mentioned the possibility of her giving linux a go

while i was tweaking, i was sticking a bunch of african mp3s on her hard drive, as she was a missionary in tanzania and misses the music

so when i went to my pile of distros, which d'ya think i picked?

[laughing at my hypocritical self]

[alejol]

ttuxxx wrote:

If you want to copy in rox, don't use the menu
open a folder to where the item you want copied is, then open another folder to where you want it to go or be copied to.
now drag it from the original location and drop it into the new location, rox will ask you then "copy,move,link' select which ever you want it to do.

Yes, I use this method. But is more error prone. The Windows method is safest if you have many windows opened in the desktop.
I have worked with older people, newbies using computers, and "drag and drop" is not comfortable to this people. And chances of moving something wrong are enormous with ROX method.
[/b]

[alejol]

I vote for improving ROX:

* No more complaints about non-UTF8 characters.
* Use of secondary mouse button for Copy , Delete and Send To
* Two panes: left for directory navigation, right for directory contents.
* Automount at boot time of every disk devide
* A icon for every disk in top of the directory tree.

If this is not possible, the simple solution is to put a second file manager in the official Puppy distro. ROX continues to manage the desktop, but another file manager with these features can be offered to the user by default.

PCMan seems to be a good candidate.

The Puppy goal is to be user friendly, and file management is a basic task for every user.[/list]

[ttuuxxx]

alejol you said error prone, I've never had a error from copying one file or even directory to another, I've copied entire versions of puppy that I edited the expanded sfs directory from one hard drive to a root directory and thats hundreds of files and system links and never had 1 broken file or system, no-way I will not say rox drag'n drop is error prone, since I've been using puppy for a few years now, I must of moved a few million files/system links and never had a error with rox, Rox is stable, maybe you don't like it, but it sure as heck does not give errors from transferring files. I agree about having alternative file managers in the repo. Next time I'm using the latest puppy I'll compile a couple and give the links to barry.
ttuuxxx

[disciple]

Puppy always used to include a second filer - but it's easy enough to install one... or a dozen.

I vote for minimising the number of patches applied to puppy's rox - i.e. go talk to the rox people and improve rox upstream, then get Puppy's builders to keep rox up to date in Puppy.

* Two panes: left for directory navigation, right for directory contents.

Do you mean a tree view on the left?

* Automount at boot time of every disk devide

OK, that shouldn't be a rox feature. But the Puppy "Desktop Drive Icon Manager" can do it already - have a look at the settings.

* A icon for every disk in top of the directory tree.

This should definitely not be a feature of a filer - it would be confusing because the icons would not show up in file open/save dialogues. If you want drives at the top of the directory tree you need to change the filesystem or just change the drive mounting system so they are mounted there, or are symlinked there.

* Use of secondary mouse button for Copy , Delete and Send To

Yes, they should really have both "move the files" and "copy the files" as options for both the left and middle buttons. Not just one option for each... go tell them this over at Rox - it should be easy enough to change.